


This Is It

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-21
Updated: 2001-04-21
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14799089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: There comes a day in every life, you're going no further till its done and over, one way or another.  Sequel toAsleep At The Traffic Light





	This Is It

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

This Is It 

Jane Harper 

Rating: PG-13  
Synopsis: There comes a day in every life, you're going no further until  
it's over and done, one way or another. A sequel of sorts to Asleep at  
the Traffic Light.  
Archive: Sure. It'll already be up on leo.net  
Disclaimer: Not a character here is mine, they all belong to the Evil  
Genius. Tip o' the keyboard to Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald.

Sometimes you just know there's something wrong, there's a knot in your  
stomach that won't go away and you can't get somebody off your mind.   
Some people ignore it, although I can't imagine how. I never could.   
And it's never steered me wrong. 

This time it woke me up out of a sound sleep. I couldn't get him out of  
my head. I got up and paced around for awhile, but this image of him  
kept floating in front of my eyes -- floating was a good word for it,  
too, because he was drowning. His eyes were wide, he was flailing to  
keep from sinking, but something was dragging him down. Finally I  
looked at the clock, saw it was five in the morning, and realized that  
it was very nearly time to get up anyway. 

The rest of the day I couldn't shake the vision. I didn't see him--I  
was too busy with too many other fish to fry--but three or four times I  
found myself wondering where he was or what he was doing. So after  
dinner I went back downstairs, knowing full well he'd still be here. 

He was sitting in his office staring at a briefing book. I watched him  
from the anteroom for at least five minutes; he didn't turn a page, he  
never looked up, there was no way he was reading a word of what was in  
front of his face. I put one of those half-smiles on my face and  
sashayed in. 

"Mandarin or Cantonese?" I asked. 

"What?" he looked up. 

"You're staring at that page as if it's written in pictograms." 

He looked back down at the papers and closed the binder, then took off  
his glasses. "I can't concentrate." 

"No kidding." 

For about five seconds he looked as if he were about to cry. "I can't  
believe it's over." 

"What are you talking about?" 

"It's over. They've got us." 

"Who's got us?" 

He waved his arm toward the window. "Them. The ones we swore we'd  
never become. They gnawed their way under the skin, slithered under the  
door, soaked in through the pores." 

"Will you please speak English?" 

He sat on the corner of the desk. "Remember that night in the kitchen,  
sitting around the breakfast table, drinking our sixth or seventh cup of  
coffee, when this thing first came together? We knew we didn't have a  
snowball's chance in hell of even getting nominated, so we said screw  
it, let's just do it right for once in history, say what we really  
believe, tell people the truth, and see if by some freak accident they  
decide to come along. You laughed and made a crack about going to sleep  
and waking up in a baseball movie." He grinned for a split second, but  
it faded as fast as it came. "We ran the whole show that way. We put  
the issues on the table, said what we had to say, and waited. Yeah,  
sure, sometimes we soft-pedaled parts of it, but we never denied an  
unpopular position and we never told people what we thought they wanted  
to hear." 

"I was so proud of you," I answered. "But you're right, it was like a  
dream, who would have believed that we'd be sitting here in this office  
having this conversation four years later?" 

"I did. I always did. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew it would  
work. Because if it didn't, it meant everything I'd ever believed about  
myself or this country was a lie." He swallowed hard. "And I couldn't  
let that be true." 

"And now?" I asked softly. 

"They've licked us. They snookered us into thinking that we'd actually  
made a difference, changed something, affected the culture of this  
stinking town. But instead, they changed us." He heaved a sigh. "We  
did exactly what we said we'd never do: we bent the truth, told only  
half of it, twisted it until it was unrecognizable, and it finally  
broke." 

I was getting annoyed. "You know this is really lovely speechifying,  
I'm impressed by your command of rhetoric, but will you please tell me  
what the hell you're on about?" 

"We told Toby. About the MS. And he accused us of a coup d'etat." 

I didn't believe what I was hearing. 

"And," he went on, "the hell of it is, he was right. The night of the  
shooting, we made a calculated decision not to transfer power to Hoynes  
in any formal way, we hid behind the Constitutional murkiness. And for  
an hour and a half, in what could have been a military crisis, this  
country was run by people nobody ever elected to anything." 

"Those people," I responded, "were the ones best equipped to make the  
decisions, people whose patriotism is unquestioned and who have made  
incredible sacrifices to serve the nation." 

"Be that as it may, that vaunted patriotism didn't extend to respecting  
the institutions enough to let them run as designed. We took the power  
into our own hands. We decided who was in charge. Not the people, not  
the courts, not the Constitution. Us. We seized power that we had no  
right to. We did," he said, waving toward the window again, "what they  
would have done. Those people that we swore we'd never be. Those  
people we seem to have become." 

"If that's true," I said, "what can be done about it?" 

"Well the ethical thing would be to resign. All of us. At least, all  
of us who were party to the c- to what happened." 

"That would put Hoynes in the Oval Office," I said. 

"Which is maybe where he should be, where he would have been if we  
hadn't come riding up on that white horse four years ago and sold a bill  
of goods to the American people." He shook his head, voice dripping  
with irony. "Talk about a snow job, we acted as if we were above all  
the shenanigans that politics had become, all wrapped up in the  
righteous indignation people have carried since '75. And at least when  
Nixon acted like king, somebody had elected him to something." 

I knew better than to argue with him; he wasn't going to listen to  
logic, he was too busy being scared. "It hasn't been all for nothing.   
You've done good things here. You've made a difference in people's  
lives. You still can." 

"How?" 

"Have you stopped believing in the people who got us here? Are you just  
gonna lie down and let them - those people out there - finally beat us?   
Are you gonna roll over and give up?" I got up and walked over until I  
stood right in front of him. "We've been here before, you know. There  
was a night in our living room when you had to make a decision, when you  
were backed into a corner and had to make a choice. Well, here we are  
again. Like the song says, this is it." 

I knew that would make him smile. Nine years ago we had descended like  
the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and rocked his world, told him it  
was time to fight or die, because if he didn't do one, he'd do the  
other. One of the kids had decided to say her piece with music: 

Are you gonna wait for a sign, your miracle? Stand up and fight!  
This is it!  
Make no mistake where you are, your back's to the corner.  
Don't be a fool anymore; the waiting is over. 

And it worked. He grinned, an honest face-cracker. "Haven't we played  
this scene before?" 

"Yeah. And it turned out really well." I reached out and took his  
hand. "We'll get through this. Illegitimati non carborundum." 

"I know," he answered. "Mostly. I just needed to talk. I'm glad you  
came down." 

"Anytime." I kissed him on the cheek. "'Night Leo." 

"Night Abbey." 

 

  


End file.
